Fringe: Greater than the sum of his parts

OH HAI, SCRIPTED DRAMA! IT HAS BEEN SO LONG! In fact, it feels like it’s been, oh, I don’t know, let’s say 20 long years in which I’ve been trapped in a grim dystopia, populated entirely by drunken rich ladies and Howard Stern and waxedmesomorphs “looking for love.” I’m not entirely sure I will remember how to do this. Fringe has a lot of throwing wine and dog acts, right?

Fortunately, Pacey, AsteriskAstrid, Bishop and Olivia have arrived to save me, you, the entire world. It would seem Fringe is going bold for this, its final, foreshortened season, and picking up where last season’s amazing episode, “Letters of Transit,” left off: in the year 2036, in a world that has been taken over by those future scientists, neo-Nazi world-spoilers The Observers. (And by the way, boy did I totally call this one wrong in my previous recap. OH WELL. WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME, I AM NOT FROM THE FUTURE AND MY HEAD IS NOT BALD. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THESE THINGS?)

Right. So. Bishop explains to us in a little recap montage that The Observers took over the joint some 20 years ago, but he came up with a plan to get rid of them, hooray! But oops, The Observers were onto them and the Fringies had to amber themselves suddenly. And then some of the Fringies were found in the future andunambered and now it’s time to FIGHT BACK AGAINST THOSE BALD JERKS.

Pacey and Olivia and a little girl are in the Lyndon Johnson “Daisy” ad, happily frolicking in a park, picking daisies dandelions, when all of a sudden NUCLEARBOMBZ!! THE OBSERVERS!! just cold come marching into the park, zapping entire buildings away, being all expressionless.

Pacey and Olivia FREAK OUT and scream for Olivia Jr., the little girl, and there is running and flailing and screaming and suddenly we’re in a triage tent of some sort and Olivia is being treated while Pacey continues stumbling around wild-eyed and yelling at people about where his little girl is. No one knows, Pacey! They’ve got a lot on their hands right now, big guy! And that’s when Pacey wakes up in 2036. Good morning, Pacey! We’ve all missed you!

Pacey peeks in on Olivia Jr. who wakes up and rolls her necklace bullet around in her fingers so that we are all like, O RIGHT, OLIVIA, wonder what happened to her? And Bishop wakes up on the couch, notices flashes of light reflecting on the wall, peeks out the window and spies a taxicab. Huh. Bishop then turns his attention to More Important Things: finding Olivia. Last time Bishop spoke to her, she was in Columbus Circle. And it was 2015. They’ve got to find her because she has a piece of the thingamajig that is going to Rid-X the Observers. The other thingamajig, the one that they retrieved from Massive Dynamics, that’s only part of the largerdoohickey that they have to build. See, when Bishop and September came up with this “Down with the Observers” plan, they broke it up into pieces and scrambled them all up in Bishop’s brain so that the Observers wouldn’t be able to read his mind and figure out the plan. September then told Bishop that when it was time to start “Operation: Hair Club for Men,” he would need to retrieve something from Grand Central Station and then “all would be clear.” So Bishop sent Olivia to go get this magic decoder ring or whatever, and that’s when she disappeared. And then Bishopambered everyone, so.

Olivia Jr. has a skeptical.

And so the gang loads up into a van and drives to Columbus Circle which has become something of a gross ghetto, but nothing compared to Central Park which the Observers have entirely paved over. Because apparently they have the same aesthetics as Houston city planners. (Ha, that’s a joke, there’s no such thing as a “Houston city planner.”) It seems the Observers find our atmosphere too oxygenyfor them, and they prefer a good layer of L.A. smog. To that end, they built a bunch of carbon monoxide machines in the park and soon the effects will be irreversible, and the average lifespan of follicled individuals will drop to 45. Fun! Fun times!

AsteriskAstrid serves her one purpose: “Hey guys, look at this thing I found,” and points out the giant glob of amber that seems to have consumed midtown. Bishop notes that he did give Olivia an ambering device in case she was about to be caught by the Observers, and so chances are she is in there. But when they get closer they realize that bodies have been chopped out of the glob by what Olivia Jr. calls “Amber Gypsies.”

FUTURE FRINGE CREDITS.

I LOVE YOU FRINGE.

The Fringies go to the Blade Runner Chinatown/black market where Olivia Jr. gives Pacey a handkerchief full of walnuts (they’re supposedly worth $3000 somehow) and sends him down an alley to an amber gypsy. After being greeted by the amber gypsy with a weapon of some sort, Pacey assures him that he and AsteriskAstrid are not loyalists, they’re just looking for a family member. The gypsy sends them around the corner where there are a bunch of ambered New Yorkers, but, alas, no Olivia. And while they are poking around, the amber gypsy pushes some secret button that clearly alerts someone to Pacey’s appearance. BECAUSE YOU CAN’T BE GOING AROUND TRUSTING AMBER GYPSIES. THE WORD “GYPSY” IS YOUR FIRST CLUE. Anyway, Pacey returns to the amber gypsy, waggles the handkerchief of walnuts in his face while describing Olivia to him and suddenly Amber Gypsy’s memory is jogged. He consults a log, and informs Pacey and AsteriskAstrid that Olivia had been sold. O RLY? TO WHOM?

Oh! Hey! It’s that creepy bookstore owner dude! I’d almost forgotten about the little guy! He’s using Olivia as a coffee table, which, while not particularly polite is at the very least practical. The doorbell rings, CANDYGRAM, but Creepy Bookstore Owner Guy refuses to open the door, grabs his shotgun and announces that Creepy Bookstore Owner is dead, go away now please. Pacey kicks down the door, disarms the wee fellow and finds Olivia under a couple of coffee mugs and back issues of Weirdo Weekly. Olivia Jr. gets her first glimpse of her mother but NO TIME FOR EMOTIONAL MOMENTS, MUST MOVE OLIVIA. As Pacey, AsteriskAstrid and Olivia Jr. load Olivia up onto a gurney and hurry her out of the building and into the waiting van, Bishop becomes distracted by Creepy Bookstore Owner Guy’s impressive thingamabob and book collection.

Which is a Very Bad Thing, because Amber Gypsy ratted them out to the brown shirts, of course, and soon an Observer is in Creepy Bookstore Owner Guy’s doorway, being all Borgy with his “Resistance is futile,” business. But he’s shot by Olivia Jr. who yells at her grandfather to run. Outside, the sirens are approaching, and Olivia Jr. makes it back to the van Bishopless. PEW PEW PEW! So much shooting at the van by the brown shirts and the Fringies have to leave the scene, sans Bishop. Oh dear.

Pacey and Olivia Jr. blast Olivia out of the amber and shove something in her neck and she’s gasping for air but she’s ok, and Pacey’s like, hey guess what, it’s 2036 and that lady over there is your daughter and Central Park is a paved parking lot and we lost Bishop and AsteriskAstrid still doesn’t have a role. That’s a lot of information to process for someone who’s just come out of 15-year slumber, Pacey! Slow down! Olivia is all ZOMG upon seeing her daughter, because ZOMG. But she collects herself and tells her daughter she’s beautiful and that the last time she saw her, Olivia Jr. was 3 years old. Olivia Jr. always thought she was 4 when they were separated, but Olivia’s like nope, 3 years, 1 month and 5 days.

(UNNECESSARY RANT: over on Fringepedia.net, which is a great site, no diss here, under “Unanswered Questions” they included this: “Why does Olivia remember Henrietta’s specific age when she last saw her? (age 3y-1m-5d)” UH, IT’S CALLED BEING A MOTHER, DUMMY. SHE LOST HER ONLY CHILD, OF COURSE SHE REMEMBERS HER DAUGHTER’S EXACT AGE WHEN THE MOST DEVASTATING EVENT IN HER LIFE OCCURRED. DON’T OVER THINK THIS, WHOEVER YOU ARE.)

Olivia asks after Bishop, and they’re like, yeah, we lost him. By the way, he mentioned you were fetching some sort of geegaw? Do you happen to have it? And she hands over this device, but has no idea what it is. Now, about finding Bishop.

Bishop has been removed to a very grim building and put in a very uncomfortable-looking chair and is introduced to KahlHimmler. Kahl Himmler has been very interested in meeting Bishop and his friends and is amused — or, if he had emotions, it would be “amused” — when Bishop tries to think of music as a way of blocking him from his head. There’s not much music in the future, because the Observers don’t understand it what with the harmonics and the rhythms and what are rappers even talking about anyway? Bishop argues that music helps you shift perspective, to see things differently. Like hope? Kahl Himmler asks for forshadowing apropo of nothing. Too bad there is no hope for you, Kahl Himmler continues. Also, I’m totes going to turn you into a vegetable, so.

The Fringies, meanwhile, head up to the Bronx Zoo, where Olivia Jr. has some buddies hiding in one of the exhibits. Olivia and Pacey wait outside while Olivia Jr. confers with her friends in the Deus ex Machina room very teched-out gorilla house, who are doing shots over the dead body of one of their comrades. SALUD.

Outside, Pacey and Olivia have an uncomfortable conversation/fill in the backstoryfor us: So, they lost Olivia Jr. during the Arrival, and then Olivia decided to move to New York to join the resistance but Pacey was like NOPE, I’m going to hang out here in Boston and look for our kid and mope, and that’s how Pacey and Olivia broke up. But Olivia doesn’t blame him and Pacey feels really bad and everyone makes sad faces. And presumably AsteriskAstrid was standing off to the side reading the displays on gorilla diets and mating behavior REALLY HARD and pretending to not hear every word they are saying.

Olivia Jr. brings her parents and AsteriskAstrid inside the Deus ex Machina roomgorilla house and introduces them to her resistance buddies, That Guy and This Guy. That Guy explains that the geegaw Olivia retrieved from Grand Central Station is a Transilience Thought Unifier, Model-11, which you put on your head and then it helps put all your thoughts together for you, which, handy! Just the thing to put all of Bishop’s mindpieces together!

The Deus ex Machina room gorilla house is also handily equipped with access to traffic cameras, and AsteriskAstrid has another “Hey, look what I found” moment: this time, Bishop, being whisked into a car and driven away. Fortunately, they are able to follow his progress as they take him to Room 101 in the Napean building. Which is a bad thing! Because besides all of the brain melting they do in there, it is also very hard to get inside.

But! That Guy and This Guy might have a way around that — some technology that would make them appear dead, and then they could sneak into the building posing as corpses because this particular building also serves as a morgue? Sure. Ok. That’s super convenient, but I’ll roll with it. The torture building is also a morgue. This Guy is like, “We should save this plan and use it to infiltrate Head Wax headquarters!” But everyone ignores him because plot. And also, doesn’t it make more sense to use technology that makes one appear dead to break into a morgue rather than The Observers’ headquarters? How would posing as a corpse help you get into The Observers’ headquarters? Does that serve as a morgue, too? Think things through, This Guy, come on.

Meanwhile in Room 101, Kahl Himmler is poking around in Bishop’s brain. He quickly figures out that someone, must have been another Observer, broke Bishop’s brain into tiny pieces so as to protect something — probably a plan to defeat the Observers. So what is it? Huh? What’s the plan, Bishop? What is it? What is it? What is it? (Repeat ad nauseum.) But Bishop he says nothing, just bleeds out of his head and rolls his eyes around in agony. Kahl Himmler then latches onto an image of a small girl. Who is she? Who is she? Who is she? (Repeat ad nauseum.)

Downstairs, Olivia Jr. arrives with a van and chit-chats with a drooling brown shirt who informs her that Desmond was discovered in amber, and that he was a double agent. O RLY? says Olivia Jr. as she unloads a couple of body bags containing Pacey and some other random dead body. The brown shirt waves a screen of some sort over the bodies, and they register as dead, I don’t know, and so the brown shirt allows Olivia Jr. to take them inside.

And so they wheel the bodies into the morgue and brown shirt is still yammering at Olivia Jr. so she shoots him because SHUT UP ALREADY and then revives Pacey. Running through the hallways, running through the hallways, running through the hallways, and then they open an exterior door to allow Olivia inside, because even though this is a hugely secure location, Olivia could just hang out by a door and no one would notice, sure, absolutely. They then go and bust a giant air conditioner which sets off a bunch of alarms, and distracts Kahl Himmler from completely melting Bishop’s brain.

As Kahl Himmler heads out to go check the fuse box before he calls the air conditioning guy, Pacey and Olivia find Bishop and drag him away. PEW PEW PEW! They shoot their way out, get back in the van and drive away. AsteriskAstrid is understandably alarmed at Bishop’s bloodied appearance, and he asks her for some music. Aw, Bishop.

And Kahl Himmler, he watches some sort of surveillance hologram, and finds the little girl from Bishop’s brain pieces: Olivia, Jr.

The Fringies bring Bishop back to the apartment, strap the Transilience Thought Unifier, Model-11 onto his head where it whirrs into action. However, theTransilience Thought Unifier, Model-11, it does nothing. Bishop can not remember what any of the geegaws and thingamajigs and Bell’s hand are for. Kahl Himmler, he has scrambled Bishop’s brain too much. OH WELL, THERE GOES THE PLAN.

Or DOES IT? Because later, Bishop, resting on the couch notices those light flickers on the wall again. Curious, he investigates, and heads outside in his robe. Following the reflections, he find some broken CDs dangling over a planter, and a bag full of more CDs. He takes one, sits in the broken down taxi cab and plays himself a littleYaz. Because we all need a little Yaz every now and then. Bishop then notices a dandelion sprouting up through the pavement, which brings him (and me) to tears because HOPE.

Other than heaping praise on this episode and John Noble’s performance ONCE AGAIN, I don’t really have all that much to add. It was a huge gamble for theshowrunners to dump the traditional “freak of the week” format in favor of what appears will be a 13 (14 if you count “Letters of Transit”)-hour-long movie, and I LIKE IT. Fringe has always been willing to take narrative chances, and what better way to pay tribute to these characters and relationships than to spend these last remaining episodes focusing on them rather than a handful of one-off investigations? But this also means that this episode is Chapter 2 in a 14-chapter-long story, and therefore it was mostly about moving the pieces into play: rescue Olivia, establishbackstory, introduce tertiary characters, swipe Bishop’s brain, etc. And therefore, it didn’t have a lot of time to be all symbolic or delve too deeply into the monomyth, or whatever.

But! It wouldn’t be one of my recaps if I didn’t yammer on at least a little about symbols and metaphors and whathaveyou, right? The biggest symbol of the episode is that dandelion, for starters. Of your flowers, dandelions are a hard-scrabble lot, weeds, really, and able to grow under the most difficult of conditions. Additionally, you have probably made a wish upon one, blowing the puffy white ball of seeds from the stalk. As such, the dandelion that Olivia Jr. was blowing in the beginning of the episode and that dandelion that Bishop spies in the end represent hope, yes. But the flower also represents Olivia Jr. herself: tough, tenacious, able to survive in this wasteland, and humanity’s last great chance against their oppressors.

This is a less obvious, and maybe not intentional at all, but I also noticed that when the Fringies loaded Bishop up into the van to drive him away, he dropped a shoe. It was a little visual note that Bishop had been roughed up, clearly, but I also read it as a symbol of Bishop losing parts of himself, that he was coming apart. That he had lost a little part of his soul/sole. Yes, I know, terrible. (But maybe?)

There is also the repeated use of sleep and death which I find very interesting. Olivia begins the episode in suspended animation, trapped in that block of amber, sleeping away the years, not unlike Sleeping Beauty. And then there is Pacey’s curious mock death. It’s interesting that Pacey would be the one to “die” in this episode, seeing how he’s the only one whose double has died and he’s been written out of existence and come back before. But even more interesting is that in this episode, it’s Olivia Jr. who brings her parents “back to life” as it were. (Yes, it’s Pacey who frees Olivia, but Olivia Jr. participates.) It’s a reversal of the typical child-parent dynamic: she is giving them life. She isn’t just waking them up, she is giving them back their lives, giving them back their purpose. Not unlike when Pacey and Olivia reunited with Bishop in the first season, took him out of the isolation at St. Claire’s and returned to him his purpose in life.

Speaking of parents and children being reunited, the writers seem to be invested in this theme of children and parents being separated and how such a profound loss can destroy a parent. What’s interesting is that the separation of child from parent is essentially what the monomyth is about — how the child must leave the world of the familiar, the safety of the parents, and explore the unknown to journey back home again transformed into an adult.

But Fringe tends to take the children from their parents at a much younger age, too young, which results in this deep, destructive heartbreak on the part of the parent, and the child often turning into something more than just merely an adult, a soldier, almost. Someone steely and determined and with a great deal of armor around their emotions, like Olivia, and to some degree Pacey (at least in the beginning of the series), and presumably Olivia, Jr., too.

Finally we have to talk about the word “transilience.” If you hadn’t looked it up already, it means “leaping or passing from one thing or state to another,” which, of course is apt for a show that has journeyed to different universes, timelines and now times. What is interesting is this word is being used in reference to the device that is supposed to help Bishop collect his thoughts, as it were. His mind itself is intended to pass from one state to another, which it has many times during the course of this season.

The altering of Bishop’s brain has been another meta theme of this series: aside from the mind-altering drugs Bishop has always enjoyed, Bishop has gone from brilliant scientist to lobotomizing himself to restoring his brain to its original condition and now having it melted all away, and yet his soul remains the same. After Bell removed part of his brain, Bishop was still brilliant, and capable of seeing things differently than the rest of the world, which in some ways was his chief talent. And so, in that last scene, with Bishop listening to Yaz’s “Only You” (brilliant song choice, guys, in all sincerity) and spotting that dandelion, it’s such a powerful moment because you know Bishop understands that even though he has been stripped again of his mind, that he has been through this before and it was terrible and painful, despite all of that, he still has hope. He just has to see things from a different perspective.

Boy howdy, am I going to be a sobbing mess when they kill Bishop at the end of this season.

Easter Eggs

Olivia Jr.’s apartment is filled with butterflies, and a seahorse hangs from the cab’s rearview mirror, both of which are glyphs. There is also a snowglobe in the cab, perhaps a reference to the two universes?

There are two Star Trek references: both “resistance is futile” and the torture building is named after Napean, a race of aliens.

The gylphs read DOUBT. Aww! Don’t have doubt, Fringies! Bishop’s going to piece it back together, just you watch!